Variant Covers

Newsarama reports on a schism in Marvel's upper management about the use of variant covers. I find it difficult to beleive, that if there really was a disagreement such as this, that Marvel would go public with it.

This is just another way for Marvel to play to the crowd, under the days of Jemas it was in attempt to piss fans off and cause controversy. Because their feelings were that as long as people are talking about them and their series, then they'll have them in their minds when they go to the shop.

Now it is an attempt to play hero, with Joe Quesada casting himself as the guy against the gimmick of variant covers, fighting against management. Which from the replies to the article praising him seem to be working, yet watch as the variant covers keep on coming.

Dreaming

Johanna at Cognitive Dissonance tells about her night out eating with friends, where she tells them about a dream she had. The dream features her going back in time to meet her younger self fresh out of college. Where she wondered what she should tell herself to avoid or do now that she's got the 20/20 hindsight that time brings.

She says the dream freaked her friends out, which I can understand as people often fear things from their past, preferring to look forward. Johanna really has a deep understanding of herself though, and all I could think was how great an idea for a comic this would make.

Yes, I am a geek.

Why it matters

John Jakala at Grotesque Anatomy says this

It's really for the best if you ignore the people who didn't like Dogville, which is easily one of the best movies I've ever seen.

I do, however, wish I knew how people can watch a movie in which disturbing behavior occurs and, because they find the film hits too close to home on some level, deduce that that reprehensible behavior is being endorsed--particularly in an oeuvre like von Trier's, in which characters who treat women horribly are inevitably punished for that treatment.

For me personally, it is because I have no interest in seeing others suffer. In the case of this movie, which features a town chaining a woman up to be gang raped every night. I can't see any reason to want to watch it, because I highly doubt that anything worthwhile can be won through such horrible deeds.

Yes I'm sure in the end the movie everyone that was bad gets it. Yet the world of movies is filled will happy endings, and no one ever really remembers them. It is the sequences inbetween the beginning and end that stays in peoples minds.